A man is not always heroic to the wife of his bosom.  Mrs. Miller went her way and left him to his righteous struggle among the Patagonian blue-books.  After all, she said to herself, it had been her duty to inform him of his daughter’s conduct, but it was needless to discuss the question further with him.  He was incapable of approaching it from her own point of view.  It would be better for her now to go her own way independently of him.  She had always been accustomed to manage things her own way.  It was nothing new to her.

Later in the day she attempted to wrest a promise from Beatrice that she would hold no further communication with the prohibited lover.  But Beatrice would give no such promise.

“Is it likely that I should promise such a thing?” she asked her mother, indignantly.

“You would do so if you knew what your duty to your mother was.”

“I have other duties besides those to you, mamma; when one has promised to marry a man, one is surely bound to consider him a little.  If I have the chance of meeting him, I shall certainly take it.”

“I shall take very good care that you have no such chances, Beatrice.”

“Very well, mamma; you will, of course, do as you think best.”

It was in consequence of these and sundry subsequent stormy conversations that Mr. Herbert Pryme suddenly discovered that he had a very high regard and affection for Mr. Albert Gisburne, the vicar of Tripton, the same to whom once Vera’s relations had wished to unite her.

The connection between Mr. Gisburne and Herbert Pryme was a slender one; he had been at college with an elder brother of his, who had died in his (Herbert’s) childhood.  He did not indeed very clearly recollect what this elder brother had been like; but having suddenly called to mind that, during the course of his short visit to Shadonake, he had discovered the fact of the college friendship, of which, indeed, Mr. Gisburne had informed him, he now was unaccountably inflamed by a desire to cultivate the acquaintance of the valued companion of his deceased brother’s youth.

He opened negotiations by the gift of a barrel of oysters, sent down from Wilton’s, with an appropriate and graceful accompanying note.  Mr. Gisburne was surprised, but not naturally otherwise than pleased by the attention.  Next came a box of cigars, which again were shortly followed by two brace of pheasants purporting to be of Herbert’s own shooting, but which, as a matter of fact, he had purchased in Vigo Street.

This munificent succession of gifts reaped at length the harvest for which they had been sown.  In his third letter of grateful acknowledgment for his young friend’s kind remembrance of him, Mr. Gisburne, with some diffidence, for Tripton Rectory was neither lively nor remarkably commodious, suggested how great the pleasure would be were his friend to run down to him for a couple of days or so; he had nothing, in truth, to offer him but a bachelor’s quarters and a hearty welcome; there was next to no attraction beyond a pretty rural village and a choral daily service; but still, if he cared to come, Mr. Gisburne need not say how delighted he would be, etc., etc.